Gave the cars some love today seeing as I had that rarest of things in my life, a Sunday off.

BMW was probably clean after just the Snowfoam but I gave it a hand wash as well, followed by some tyre shine. It got a proper wheel wash this time as well which it was crying out for. Polar Seal is still beading nicely after a couple of weeks use in the winter grime.

Then there was the Celica…

First up was a full (diluted) G101 bath from a trigger spray bottle. Not sure why I didn’t use one of my new pump spray bottles there tbh.

Then I broke out my new Farecla clay mitt to have another go at removing the bonded on paint primer and other junk.

The before, all manner of nastiness.

During:

The mitt was an absolute revelation. 15 mins solid on half the rear wing with clay didn’t even get it half way ready for polishing. 5 mins total with the mitt took care of the whole bonnet.

Then I gave it a go with Meguiars Ultimate Compound and my new DAS-6, my first time properly using the machine polisher beyond half the rear wing.

Bonnet was a good choice to start with, barely a flat section on it! Made a few rookie errors despite all the YouTube videos I’ve watched over the last week telling me not to; too much product, too much pressure stalling the polisher, lifting it off the panel before it’s done spinning etc.

Anyways, absolutely made up with the results:

The best illustration of how much improvement there is in the finish, is this comparison of the reflection on the untreated roof vs the polished bonnet:

Bought some AutoGlym Polar Seal after seeing it on YouTube.

Car was filthy so gave it a wash then used the Polar Seal as directed. Spray on, rinse off.

Results were impressive, now just need to see if it holds up.

Bonnet immediately after washing

Bonnet after rinsing the Polar Seal off

I guess you have to be a certain age to get what that title is all about, but anyways…

The Celica was looking a bit unloved, so with the MINI at the workshop, I had some garage space (turns out I didn’t but I’m done getting annoyed about the amount of stuff in there) and some weekend time.

Dead as a dodo. It got a new battery in February last year, before being used to conquer the Beast from the East’s snow, but not a hint of power. Tried sticking it on charge, my fancy digital charger just said “error” it was that flat. Gave it a jump off the BMW, soon as I disconnected the jump leads it died. Tried again and left both running for ten minutes this time, still died as soon as the lead was taken off. New battery added to the shopping list.

Now the lack of garage space didn’t matter as I couldn’t reverse it in. So I got out the claybar kit.

The paint on the car is dire. The mist of overspray means the paint feels like sandpaper and there’s also crazy markings that look almost like Damascus steel, where I used G101 to dissolve some bird muck and didn’t rinse it off properly.

These run off lines don’t come off with normal washing.

The outline of a box that was sitting on the sunroof when the overspray mist landed.

That’s a close up of just how bad the rear wing looks with all the overspray and bonded surface contaminants from the storage in the underground car park.

Turns out I already had a claybar kit, despite buying one on Saturday to use on the car. So now with more clay than an average pottery, I set about a section of the rear wing.

The results were extremely underwhelming. Despite 4 separate sessions with the clay, the paint is still awful. This was just 1 session and on an area less than a square foot.

There is a difference in feel, but it’s like 1200 grit vs 800 grit, visually there’s no real difference.

You can just about see where I haven’t clayed in the top of this photo

After a sulk, I decided to try something else. Cracked out a bottle of Meguiars Ultimate Compound and had a go at a section of the bootlid (the upwards facing surfaces are by far the worst). Now this was a different story, but bloody hard work!

So now I know the solution, just need to mentally come to terms with just how much elbow grease it’s going to take to do the whole car!